


SHAKESPEARE 

AND 

ASTROLOGY 

From a Student's Point of View 



By 
WILLIAM WILSON 



BOSTON 

OCCULT PUBLISHING CO. 

204 Dartmouth St. 



CO ' 



A? 



^ 






SHAKESPEARE AND ASTROLOGY.* 



If the prognostications of the Science of Planetary Influ- 
ence as to its own future are to be considered worthy of atten- 
tion, we may regard ourselves as living on the eve of an interest- 
ing era at the present time. Whether Astrology and its presages 
be or be not adapted to the use of intelligent people is a ques- 
tion on which even they agree to differ ; we all have what Arte- 
mus Ward used to call our idiot syncrasies ; many there are who 
hold that the question never attained the dignity of being one ; 
probably the position of those alone is safe who have learned to 
reserve their judgment until that which forms the basis of so 
much adverse criticism is removed, namely, a lack of acquaint- 
ance with the subject. 

Of one thing we on this planet may rest assured ; if the 
fortress of our reason is not yet ready to capitulate to anything 
that comes with such queer credentials, there is at least consid- 
erable knocking at the gate going on at present. The signs in- 
deed are plentiful that this aged, once esteemed, now jeered at 
science occupies not only wider ground today than it has yet 
done in our modern life, but that public interest in it is rapidly 
on the increase. Astronomers are kept busy preparing Ephemer- 
ides of the Planets ' Places from year to year ; there are well estab- 
lished publications of the kind ; public library authorities see 
fit, not only to inlay their vestibules with the Zodiacal Signs, 
but also to include a considerable amount of the literature on 
the subject in their lists ; teachers, more or less qualified, there 
are in plenty ; serious students abound : in short, it would seem 
that Astrology is now ready for that vigorous opposition and 
misrepresentation which is always at hand when a great ques- 
tion is ripening for consideration. 

As far as its message is concerned, we that have free souls 
it touches us not : our withers are not in danger ; we need not 
hesitate to hear it, tersely expressed as it has been by a recent 
writer. "During the coming century," says this gentleman, 
"while the Sun, in the greater cycle, progresses through the 
Zodiacal Sign Aquarius, Astrology is destined to become the re- 
ligion of our race. ' ' The prognostication is at least sufficiently 



^Copyright 1903 by William Wilson. 



distintft, whatever else may be said about it. In olden times the 
Oracles were careful ; they spoke in generalities ; we of today 
have changed all that. 

Yet the fact remains that Astrology is pressing itself upon 
the world and is practically demanding to be examined. A re- 
ligion it mayor may . not be; meanwhile, however, it comes 
with an explanation of much that we see in the conduct of the 
universe which, to most of us, is new ; we hear the word "Sci- 
ence" gravety used in connection with a mysterious something 
which we have hitherto held to be no more definable and trust- 
worthy than Gypsy (that is, Egyptian) fortune-telling ; and our 
first feeling is a very curious one. It almost amounts to scare. 
We are tempted to peep into the temple, the outer doors of which 
are open, for something says there is a truth, away far back, 
within. At the same time we are uncomfortably conscious that, 
by so doing, we subject ourselves to the ridicule of the multi- 
tude outside, of our friends, and possibly even of ourselves, if 
we should, emerge from this novel condition of seeing as we 
never saw before. We therefore fall back on the healthy instinct 
of our childhood, when we were first confronted with things 
that touched us strangely, and seek to find out what our fathers 
thought about them. 

As a contribution to this harmless entertainment, it will, 
not be unprofitable to listen to one whose identity may be doubt- 
ful, but of whose importance there never has been a question, 
the writer of the plays of Shakespeare. Of the usefulness of 
a Science which has played such an enormous part in the his- 
tory of the world, which had made its mark on nations long be- 
fore Ptolemy existed, and of which, in their time, men of the 
acuteness of Addison and Swift thought it well to make so many 
exhibitions of their ignorance, nothing need be said. The pur- 
pose of this paper is attained if if be established that the great 
English playwright not only was interested in Zodiacal and 
Planetary questions, but seemed to have found time, at a period 
when study must have been hampered by the absence of astro- 
nomic material, to devote a very considerable portion of his 
attention to the gaining of knowledge on the subject. The 
main objection' to the enquiry may be at once conceded ; it in- 
creases the already large amount of irresponsible talk about 
him ; but the evil ceases there ; the disintegrating influence of 
the planets, if it be a factor on earth at all, is as powerful on 
books and pamphlets as it is on human beings, everything must 



sooner or later succumb to it ; as for the right or wrong of 
spending time in such a way, there is nothing good or bad but 
thinking makes it so. We may know as little of the matter as 
the philanthropist does of the working classes and yet admit that 
there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our phi- 
losophy. Shakespeare was a poet, and poetry makes its impress 
by reason of an occult something that lies behind it ; but the 
great poets are not content to trust to inspirations ; they busy 
themsel ves as well with what is going on around them ; and those 
are well equipped indeed who have nothing to learn from careful- 
ly observing the directions in which their study tends to move. 
That there was abundant public interest in Shakespeare's 
time in the subject of the so-called stargazing, to which so many 
references are found in the poets of the period, Spencer, Chaucer, 
Milton, as well as the minor writers, is evident in the third 
scene of the 5th Act of "Lear," where the aged king comments 
on the habit of the day. "We take upon us" he says, "the 
mystery of things, as if we were God's spies. And we wear 
out in a wall 'd prison pacts and sects of great ones that ebb 
and flow by the moon." In Act 1, Sc. 2, however, Gloster is 
made to insist that these "late eclipses in the sun and moon 
portend no good to us." Shakespeare, never didactic, gives to 
Edmund the following pregnant answer : — 

"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we 
are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behavior) we 
make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and stars ; as if 
we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, 
knaves, thieves and treachers by spherical predominance, drunk- 
ards, liars and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetar}- 
influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting on ; 
an admirable evasion of a man to lay his goatish disposition to 
the charge of a star. ' ' 

Then conies an illustration of a Nativity which would seem 
to have been frequent in the poet's time, and he closes with 
what, no doubt, was a sentiment that often found its way into 
the daily conversation of those about him: — 
''Edmund. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read 
the other day what should follow these eclipses. 

Edgar. Do you busy yourself with that ? 

Edmund. I promise you the effects he writes of succeed 
unhappily. " 
Here it is the author himself who is "sectary astronomical" 



and concerned with the development of a character under cer- 
tain well known astrological conditions. This habit of working 
with Zodiacal types appeared to grow as years went on. There 
is a beautiful instance of it in one of his later plays. In the 
2nd. Scene of the 1st. Act of "Twelfth Night" Sir Toby says, 
in reply to Andrew's expressed yearning to "set about some 
revels ; " — 

"What else shall we do? Were we not born 
under Taurus ? 
Sir And. Taurus ? That 's sides and heart. 
Sir Toby. No, sir, it's legs and thighs." 

To the uninformed reader such words are meaningless. 
Singer explains them by saying that the errors were probably 
intentional; but Andrew's clearly was not, while Toby's as 
surely was ; the truth being that Shakespeare, himself a Taurus 
man, was treating at the time the very best of his Taurian 
characters (FalstafF and Bottom not forgotten) ; and Toby was 
not the man to let his friend Capricorn's misstatement pass 
without rallying him with another. Why he chose that par- 
ticular one is apparent from the context. Toby had the charac- 
teristic Taurian interest in physique, legs had special fascination 
for him (witness, in a later scene, his remarks on these essentials 
in the personality of Viola) ; Andrew's shanks in particular 
took his fancy : — 

"I did think" says he, "by the excellent constitution of thy 

leg that it was formed under the star of a galliard. " 

"Aye" says Andrew succumbing to the flattery 7 , " 'tis 

strong and it does indifferent well in a flame coloured 

stock." 

"What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?" asks Toby, 

the exquisite, the inimitable. 

"Faith" says the victim, "I can cut a caper." And one 

can hear the Taurian chuckle and the basso comment, sotto 

voce :«— "And I can cut the mutton to't. " 

In the letter to Malvolio, in the composition of which Toby 
must have had. a hand, (Act 2, Sc. 5) we have the words : — 
"In my stars I am above thee ; 
but be not afraid of greatness." • 
where the reference clearly is to Jupiter near Midheaven in the 
tenth or eleventh "house" as opposed to Jupiter beneath the 
earth at time of birth. This is shown by the subsequent — 



"Jove and my stare be praised; Jove, I thank thee; I 
will smile, I will do everything that thou wilt have me ; " 
wherein is expressed the delight of the oppressed Saturnian at 
finding himself in the Benefic's favour after all ; he will even 
forego the one privilege that was afforded him at birth, his rue- 
ful countenance ; there is to be no holding back ; "up to this, " 
he says, "I had thought } r our gracious benefits rather grudg- 
ingly bestowed, but there is no mistake about it now, here is 
munificence indeed ; abject slavery is the very least that can be 
offered in return ; do with me what you will." That Shakes- 
peare was aware of the qualities attributed to Jupiter is evident 
from this, as well as from Act 3, Sc. 1, where Viola saj-s to the 
Clown: — "Hold, here's expenses for thee, "an, astrologically 
speaking, eminently Jovial impulse which elicits the response : — 
"Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard," 
from the observant Clown, who knew he was dealing with 
a Jupiterian and recognised the influence of the planet in 
her behaviour. The successor to that admirable Viola (and 
Sagittarian) Miss Ellen Terry will therefore (if Astrology's predic- 
tion about itself be true) not require to be informed that Shakes- 
peare saw his Viola with blonde or light brown hair, she being 
a Sagittarian, not only in her relations to others, but in her own 
career throughout the play. No one who has interested himself 
in this phase of the subject can fail to be impressed with the 
grasp of it possessed by Shakespeare. There is scarcely an 
utterance in the play that is not significant. 

As an illustration of the consistent way in which he worked, 
it is worth}' of note that Viola's twin has similar characteris- 
tics ; he also is under the Lord of Sagittarius, although he sa3 T s, 
in Act 2, Sc. 1 : 

"My stars shine darkly o'er me. Myself and 
sister both born in an hour. If the heavens 
had been pleased, would we had so ended." 

This however was a passing shadow ; the fortunate Sagit- 
tarian is maintained throughout the comedy; neither suffers want 
at any time ; even the shipwrecked Viola is treated with consist- 
ent poetic license, and seems to have preserved, not only her 
presence of mind, but her gold as well, at a tjme when the loss 
of both would have been excusable. As for the brother, her 
twin, whose career is similar to her own, he also is within the 
text book limits ; for, so soon as he meets a danger, in the form 
of a tussle with the fighter par excellence, Sir Tob}- Taurus, a 



planetary confederate appears and rescues him. Viola, it will 
be remembered, has also an experience of the kind. It is diffi- 
cult to imagine that anyone possessed of the most rudimentary 
acquaintance with the subject could fail to enjoy here the attrac- 
tive combination of art and science. To suppose it the result 
of chance would surely involve an effort out of proportion to 
the necessities of the case. Happy -go-luckyism may be a 
genial guide at times, but sooner or later it sends its victim 
sprawling. It is easier to suppose that Shakespeare accepted 
the theory of Zodiacal Influence, and set himself to portray 
the various types accordingly ; as Masson has said, whatever 
he can be found to have done there is considerable likelihood 
that he knew he was doing. 

Nor, when treating the larger, does he neglect the smaller 
planets. We have in the 4th. Scene of Act I, the clown saying:- 

' Now Mercury endow thee with leasing (lying)." 
an instance as significant as that of the Mercury, badly aspected, 
in "Winter's Tale", our disreputable friend Autolycus ; 
"Who, being as I am, littered under Mercury, was 
likewise a .snapper up of ill-considered trifles," 
a subtle definition when the derivation of the word "consider" 
is borne in mind. There, of course, is no suggestion here of 
the Argonaut precursor of this , Autolycus ; but, if there were, 
it would only affect the range, not the relevance of the enquiry 
which naturally occurs as to the origin of the thievish god and 
his relationship with the planet that bears his name. This would 
leave untouched the question of how such words as consider, 
jovial, Saturnine, Martial, Mercurial, contemplate, desire, ill-star- 
red, desideratum, lunatic, lunes, moon-struck, moony and others 
have found their way into Shakespeare's plenteous vocabulary, 
or how the days of the week, Sun-da}', Moon-day, Mar-di, Mer- 
cre-di, Thor or Jupiter's day, Freia or Venus' day and Saturn or 
Satur's day had their meaning for him if their astrological par- 
entage be set aside. As for the Moon's day, his references to it 
are too numerous for quotation. "Midsummer Night's Dream" 
is extended over a period of four nights in order to satisfy the 
duke concerning it. The play opens with a statement of his 
views : — 

"Theseus. Now, Fair Hippolyta our nuptial hour draws 
on apace. x Four happy days bring in another 
moon. 



Hippol. Four days will quickly dream away the time 

and then the moon, like a silver bow now bent 
heaven, shall behold the night of our solemni- 
ties." 
At a later time Hermia is told to "take time to pause, and, 
by the next new moon, the sealing day betwixt my love and 
me, prepare to wed Demetrius", which, if it does not establish 
the writer's own conviction that there is, in Solomon's words, a 
time for everything, at least completes the case for his Duke of 
Athens. 

Interesting it is to note throughout this play, as well as 
that of the "Tempest", how well the poet knew when to have 
done with Zodiacs and Right Ascensions, how he subdues his 
science, so prominent at other times, and allows the stars to play 
their part as an attractive background to his picture. Apos- 
trophes such as those of Oberon to the planet Venus are common ; 
the witchery of night is ever present ; when the stars are in 
view they fulfil all that is needed of them ; anything that would 
divert attention from their beauty is carefully withheld. Only 
once in the "Tempest", in Act 1, Sc. 2, does Prospero allow 
the tools with which he works to show themselves : — 

"I find" he says, "my Zenith doth depend upon a most 
auspicious star, whose influence, if now I court not, 
but omit, my fortunes will ever after droop." 
This at once suggests the inner meaning of "there is a tide 
in the affairs of men ;" but Prospero is Ariel's master (the im- 
pulsive Ariel, born under Aries) and, as such, is supreme in 
forces which lie beyond the critic's pale ; he is magician as well 
as student of Astrology, and so is in the convenient position of 
being able to do precisely as he wills. 

In Act 1, Sc. 2, of "Winter's Tale" Polixenes speaks of 
"nine changes of the watery moon" which had transpired since 
he left his throne ; Leontes, in the same scene, makes a charac- 
istic allusion to a planet, the nature of which he no doubt 
understood, for he himself was subject to it ; and, later, Camillo 
says, at a crisis in his life :— 

"Happy star, reign now ; here comes Bohemia." 

Hermione complains, in the third scene of the second act, 

that "some ill planet reigns", and, in the third act speaks of 

her infant, "starred unluckily" and from her "breast haled out 

to murder;" as for the Oracle business in Act 3, it is known, if 



8 

not always respected, by every student of Astrology ; though 
here again the artist hand is strong ; the Oracle is not loqua- 
cious, he is carefull}' non-committal, he does not interrupt the 
action by provoking wonder as to how he got his mysterious 
information. 

If Malone was justified in maintaining that Shakespeare 
did not write the first part of "Henry VI" and that too especi- 
ally on account of allusions thereiu contained, it is noteworthy 
•that the planetary references were not included. They were 
probably common to all writing at the time. Bedford begins at 
the very outset : — 

"Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night, 
Comets, importing change of times and states, 
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky, 
And with them scourge the bad, revolting stars 
That have consented unto Henry's death." 
Shortly afterwards he invokes the spirit of the king to "combat 
with, ad verse planets in the heavens" (compare "the stars in 
their courses fought against Sisera"), his whole attitude in the 
scene being an impressive one in this respect. The second 
scene affords an opportunity to note the progress made by 
Astronomy since Shakespeare's time ; though it may be doubted 
whether even now we have all the inforrriation possessed by the 
ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans; Joseph's reading of Pharoah's 
dream, for instance, being evidently based on the movements of 
Uranus, which we regard as discovered little more than a century 
ago. "Mars" says Charles, "his true moving, even as in the 
heavens, so in the earth, to this day is not known. Late did he 
shine upon the English side ; now we are victors, upon us he 
smiles." That is to say, we are not certain either as to his 
precise movement in the heavens, or to the effect he has upon the 
earth. 

Act IV., Sc. 5 of the same play introduces further evidence 
of the care with which the author (or his imitator) worked out 
such matters to their logical conclusion. Talbot cries to his 
son :— "I did send for thee to tutor thee ; but, oh malignant and 
ill-boding stars, now thou art come to the feast of death, a ter- 
rible and unavoided danger. ' ' The commentators read this as 
meaning unavoidable ; but unavoided is clearly meant ; that is, 
astrologically speaking, a danger to which you are liable and 
which you have made 'no effort to avoid. Talbot speaks as if 
Suddenly impressed by a planetary call to aid his son ; but the 



aspect was not strong enough to be of service. The lad refuses 
to be moved ; the father thereupon sees the inevitable and con- 
cludes by saying :-"Then here I take my leave of thee fair son, 
born to eclipse thy life this afternoon; come, side by side togeth- 
er. " The astro-logical crisis occurs in the seventh scene. 

Julia, in Act 2, Sc. 7 of the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," 
says that "truer stars did govern Proteus' breath", and, in the 
"Merry Wives" is recorded, in reply to an Arien outburst on the 
part of Pym, Pistol's conviction that he is "the very Mars of 
malcontents." Mars, it will be remembered, is the ruler of the 
Zodiacal sign of Aries. 

In the third scene of the opening Act of "Much Ado" we 
have Don John saying : — 

"I wonder that thou, being (as thou say'st thou 
art) born under Saturn, goest about to apply a 
moral medicine to a mortifying mischief. " 
Don John, himself an ill-aspected Saturn man, naturally 
objected to his ruling planet being accused of harbouring good 
intentions, even though of fruitless kind. To recur, however, 
to Mars, there is in "All 's Well" some entertaining treatment,' 
Helena showing herself to be quite a skilled practitioner. In 
Act 1, Sc. 1, she says ;— "It were all one that I should love a 
bright particular star and think to wed it", the fuller meaning 
appearing later when she speaks of we "the poorer born, whose 
baser stars do shut us up in wishes", while at the close of the 
scene, there is the following : — 

"Hel. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable 
star. 
Par. Under Mars I. 
Hel. I especially think under Mars. 
Par. Why under Mars? 
Hel. The wars have so kept you under that you must 

needs be born under Mars. 
Par. When he was predominant ? 
Hel. When he was retrograde, I think, rather." 

This entire Act being one of its author's most attractive 
Court studies, which in "Hamlet" came to such perfection, Hel- 
ena's charitable construction of Mars is more readily accepted, 
He is here found in full knowledge of the importance of the 
retrogression of a planet, which might be suggested as having 
been in his mind when he causes the King in "Hamlet" to 



10 

say : — "It is most retrograde to our desire. " The retrogression 
of a planet was and is understood to be oppressive in effect. 

In "Timon of Athens" and "As you like it" little use is 
made of this material, for obvious artistic reasons ; the love 
story would have lost romance, the tragedy would have failed 
in its appeal. On the other hand there are numerous allusions 
in "Love's Labor Lost, " in particular to the influence of the 
moon, while purely astronomical talk is very frequent, such as 
that of the Bear being "over the new chimney and yet our 
horse is not yet packed, " (time is flying, in other words) which 
appears in Act 2, Sc. 1 of "Henry IV." The Bastard cries 
despairingly in "King John," (Act 5, Sc. 6) : — "Now you stars 
that move in your right spheres, where be your powers?" In 
"Richard II." (Act 3, Sc. 4) and in the "Taming of the Shrew" 
(Act 4, Sc. 5) there are also exclamations similar in kind. 

In the great classic play the Sooth or Truth Sayer warns 
Caesar to "beware the Ides of March" and is represented 
throughout as being a personage who influenced his hearers, the 
higher class of them especially. . In the opening of Act 3 the 
"sectary astronomical" appears again, when Caesar says : — 

"But I am constant as the Northern star, of whose true 
and lasting quality there is no fellow in the firmament;" 
talk of the day, no doubt, but with the weight of astronomy 
behind it. Nor is he neglectful of its possibilities in other 
ways; like his own William, he has "a pretty wit" at times, 
though it be caviare to the general ; witness ' 'Saturn and Ven- 
us" in Act 2, Sc. 4 of the second part of "Henry IV." when Hal 
and Poins enter from behind. To add to this there is the pas- 
sage in Act 2 of "Troilus:" — 

"And fly like chi'dden Mercury from 
Jove, or like a star disorb'd;'* 
which shows that years of study had made the author so famil- 
iar with the properties of the conjunctions that he could toy 
with ihem correctly, had taught him also the relative speed of 
planets and the importance of the orbs ; that is, the radius in 
which a planet is effective, as to which there are still discussions 
to be heard. 

To the. casual reader such quotations, shorn of the context 
and clubbed together in one collection, may appear of little 
moment; but, even as they are, the deduction is unavoidable that 
devotion to a science is necessary before it can be handled with 



11 

such genial freedom and at the same time never failing relevance 
and accuracy. 

Dryden well said that Shakespeare is often flat and even 
insipid, that his comic wit is frequently of the poorest, and his 
serious swelling degenerates sometimes into bombast ; but, he 
finely added ' 'he is always great when some great occasion is 
presented to him ; no man can say he ever had a fit subject and 
did not rise to meet it. " We have only to recall the knocking 
at the gate in "Macbeth," the hot air of the Verona streets in 
4 'Romeo, ' ' the instant arrestment of attention by the opening 
scene in "Hamlet," Othello's last words and Cassio's comment 
on them, to be once again impressed by the truth of this. Yet in 
nothing was he greater than in his control of means ; there can be 
little doubt that planetary influence was something more to him 
than literary garnish, yet it is never used with faddishness, 
never when it can be said to be out of place and disturbing to 
the tenor of the scene. With the exception of the significant 
foreboding at the end of Act 1, Sc. 4 there is no word of it in 
"Romeo and Juliet" until the tragic crescendo commences and 
the lover hears the news of Juliet's death. There the unerring 
dramatist strikes a chord : — 

' 'Is it even so ? " says Romeo ; "then I defy you, stars. ' ' 

. Still the climax is yet to come and his words, later, in the 
tomb : — "Here will I set up my everlasting rest and shake the 
yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh, " pre- 
pares us for the end. If the writers of today had even a glim- 
mering of such instinct for the dramatic, we might leave our 
theatres with less of melanchoty than we do. 

The final scene in "Othello" gives a similar illustration : — 
"It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.. Let me not name 
it to you, ye chaste stars. * * * Oh heavy hour, methinks 
it should be now a huge eclipse of sun and moon ; but, oh 
vain boast, who can control his fate ? Be not afraid, here is 
our journe} T 's end. Oh, ill-starr'd wench." 

Strongest, perhaps, is the poetic expression of his deduc- 
tion from it all, in the sonnets, particularly the 14th, 15th, 25th, 
and 29th, of which the second in order is quoted in conclusion :- 

"When I consider everything that grows, 

Holds in perfection but a little moment, 

That this huge state presenteth naught but shows, 



12 



Whereon the stars in secret influence comment, 
When I perceive that men as plants increase, 
Cheered and checked even by the selfsame sky, 
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height increase, 
And wear their brave state out of memory, 
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay, 
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, 
And, all in war with time for love of you, 
As he takes from you, I engraft you new." 



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